Pakistan said yesterday the world must share the blame for failing to unearth bin Laden as a furore swelled over how the slain al-Qaeda kingpin had managed to live undisturbed near Islamabad.
On the revelation
that bin Laden was living less thai two hours' drive north of the capital Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilan
said: "Certainly, we have intelligence failure of the rest of the world including the United States.
"There is intelligence failure of the whole world, not Pakistan alone," he told reporters during a visit to Paris, reports AFP.
Pakistan needed "the support of the entire world" to eradicate terrorism, Gilani said.
"We are fighting and paying a heavy price to combat terrorism and extremism... fighting not only for Pakistan but for the peace, prosperity and progress of the whole world," he added.
The White House, meanwhile, said bin Laden was unarmed when US special forces shot and killed him.
'Tn the room with bin Laden, a woman—bin Laden's wife— rushed the US assaulter and was shot in the leg but not killed," Carney said. "Bin Laden was then shot and killed. He was notarmed."
When pressed further, Carney said there had been significant resistance, a "volatile firefight", and insisted: "We were prepared to capture him if that was possible."
The New York Times quoted officials as saying commandos did not know if bin Laden or others were wearing suicide belts.
The strike team opened fire in response to "threatening moves" as they reached the third-floor room where they found bin Laden, CIA Director Leon Panetta told PBS television.
US WON'T RELEASE PHOTO US President Barack Obama yesterday said he had decided not to release photographs showing the body of Osama bin Laden for fear it will become a propaganda tool.
"That is not who we are. We don't trot this stuff out as trophies," Obama said in an interview with CBS, adding it was important to keep photographic evidence from "floating around as incitement or propaganda tool."
"There is no doubt that bin Laden is dead. Certainly there is... no doubt among al-Qaeda members that he is dead. And so we don't think that a photograph in and of itself is going to make any difference.
PAKISTAN UNDER
PRESSURE
Outraged US lawmakers are calling for billions of dollars in aid for Pakistan to be cut back or scrapped entirely, while several governments in Europe say Islamabad has pressing questions to answer.
Pakistan has hit back at US claims that it could not be trusted with details of the raid that killed bin Laden.
The country faced growing pressure yesterday to explain how the world's most-wanted man was able to live for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, reports Reuters.
Pakistan has denied it gave shelterto bin Laden.
But unusually frank remarks from the CIA chief betrayed the extent of distrust between the United States and Pakistan.
"It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission," Panetta told Time magazine. "They might alert the targets."
But Salman Bashir, the top civil servant in Pakistan's foreign ministry, told the BBC yesterday that the ISI had in fact alerted the United States to its suspicions about the imposing compound "as far back as2009".
But it was not known at the time that bin Laden was sheltering there and there were "millions" of other suspect locations, the foreign secretary acknowledged.
Bashir also said that Panetta's remarks were "disquieting" as he underlined the "pivotal role" played by Pakistan in fighting terror.
Pakistani intelligence officials said agents raided the bin Laden compound in 2003 when it was still being built, looking for then al-Qaeda number three Abu Faraj al-Libbi, who escaped and was eventually captured two years later.
The powerful InterServices Intelligence (ISI) agency had no idea bin Laden was later holed up in the compound in Abbottabad, they said.
Meanwhile, Obama administration officials in Washington and in Islamabad are demanding that Pakistan quickly provide answers to specific questions about bin Laden and his years-long residence in a bustling Pakistani city surrounded by military installa-tions, reports The Washington Post.
In addition to detailed information about the bin Laden compound--who owned and built the structure and its security system— Pakistani officials are being asked in meetings with US military, intelligence and diplomatic interlocutors to provide names of witnesses who can testify about visitors to the compound.
POLLS SHOW OBAMA POPULARITY SURGE President Barack Obama received abigboost following the US military raid that killed bin Laden, with his approval rating surging 11 points, a new poll showed yesterday.
The survey conducted by the New York Times and CBS News found that 57 percent of respondents approved of the president's job performance, compared to 46 percent last month, reports AFP
The biggest upward bump came from Americans with 72 percent approving of the way Obama is handling the threat of terrorism. Asked the same question back in August, only 51 percent of those asked said they approved.
Nato's chief urged Pakistan yesterday to make progress in the battle against terrorism in the wake of bin Laden’s killing by US forces near Islamabad.
About 70 lawyers staged a rally in Abbottabad yesterday, condemning the US operation in their city, witnesses said.
Police sealed off the Bilal suburb of the city, after crowds and the media had gathered outside the bin Laden compound's towering outer walls.